The presently disclosed and/or claimed inventive concept(s) pertains to the field of the beverage preparation systems, in particular using capsules containing an ingredient for preparing a beverage. More particularly, the presently disclosed and/or claimed inventive concept(s) relates to accessories for storing capsules, and machines for preparing a beverage adapted to cooperate with such accessories.
For the purpose of the present description, a “beverage” is meant to include any human-consumable liquid substance, such as coffee, tea, hot or cold chocolate, milk, soup, baby food or the like. A “capsule” is meant to include any pre-portioned beverage ingredient or combination of ingredients (hereafter called “ingredient”) within an enclosing packaging of any suitable material such as plastic, aluminium, a recyclable and/or biodegradable material and combinations thereof, including a soft pod or a rigid cartridge containing the ingredient.
Certain beverage preparation machines use capsules containing an ingredient to be extracted or to be dissolved and/or an ingredient that is stored and dosed automatically in the machine or else is added at the time of preparation of the drink. Some beverage machines possess liquid filling means that include a pump for liquid, usually water, which pumps the liquid from a source of water that is cold or indeed heated through heating means, e.g. a thermoblock or the like.
Especially in the field of coffee preparation, machines have been widely developed in which a capsule containing a beverage ingredient is inserted in a brewing device. The brewing device is tightly closed about the capsule, water is injected at the first face of the capsule, the beverage is produced in the closed volume of the capsule and a brewed beverage can be drained from a second face of the capsule and collected into a receptacle such as a cup or glass.
Capsules storages are commonly used to store in a common place, outside the beverage machine, a stock of capsules. For instance, a user can conveniently put the capsules that he had just bought, in this accessory, generally placed at the immediate vicinity of his beverage preparation machine. For preparing his beverage, the user then might pick up an appropriate capsule in the capsules storage, and put it directly in the machine.
However, the existing capsule storages do not provide any further possibilities for providing information on the stored capsules, and interactions with the user are very limited. That's why there is still a need to increase convenience of such device, in particular by providing information on the capsules and new functionalities.